Inspired
by Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel
Summary: Musa's brooding at the White Horse is interrupted by Helia. The two artists talk and Musa finds out that Helia has depths of his own that she is not sure that she should know.
1. Chapter 1

**Inspired  
><strong>Wednesday, December 29, 2010

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Winx Club.

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><p>Musa looked out the window of the White Horse Café from the empty second floor. She was alone. The setting sun cast long shadows all along the café's floor. She had a glazed look in her eyes and a small smile pulling at her cheeks. Her cheek was leaned over one hand. She watched the happy people have fun on the lake. She hummed idly. There was a cold cup of coffee, a doodled notebook with song sheets spilling out of it and a forgotten pencil.<p>

She read the lyrics on the song she had been working on again and her heart tightened.

_My feelings are not toys,  
><em>_Sooner or later you will understand that.  
><em>_When I'm beside you,  
><em>_There is a wall already between us._

Musa crumpled the sheet angrily. She pushed the offending sheet to other side of the table. She exhaled heavily and felt like she wanted to cry. Things with Riven were, as usual, going terribly. Every time she saw him, they argued. She always expected that she woud be the one to end it all. She would blow up in his face and vindictively accuse him for the crappy boyfriend he was in front of all their friends.

That made her even sadder. Was she really that spiteful?

Her friends would call her a witch if they really knew the thoughts that passed through her mind all the time.

Musa had come to the café to focus on her creative side. It was her reprieve from the obligations of real life. It was supposed to make her happy and help her survive the tedium of day-to-day life, but she simply was just not feeling _it_.

_It._ The maddening need to put pen to paper. The rush to create something beautiful. The overwhelming desire to make music. Inspiration.

Musa looked around the café.

As if she would find inspiration at the next table.

"Helia?"

Helia had just climbed the stairs. He wore jeans and a red T-shirt with his hair tied back. He carried a large black rectangular case, a portfolio of sorts, in his hand and a worn leather duffle bag on his shoulder. In his other hand was a bottle of soda and a sandwich ordered from downstairs. He waved awkwardly at Musa. "Hi."

"Hi," Musa said nervously. Her heart rate soared.

Helia was the new member on Riven's team. How that happened, she was not quite sure but she had inkling that there had been some tampering on Saladin's part. It did not sound good, as Musa understood it. Then again, it was Riven who had told her. Riven was too paranoid about the simplest things sometimes.

"Well, see you later then," Helia said abruptly and went to look for a table.

"Wait, you can sit with me." Musa haphazardly cleared the table of her music sheets.

"Thanks." Helia set down his things on the floor and laid his foodstuff on the table.

"You're welcome." Musa eyes returned to her notebook and then back to Helia. She examined him plainly.

He had the muscles. Wait. That sounded totally wrong. Helia was muscular, as to be expected from a specialist at Red Fountain. The work that the specialists' did was physically intensive. They needed to hone their bodies to prepare for the dangers that lied in the battlefield. They needed to be strong, if they wanted to graduate. His arms were lean. She could see the hard toned arm muscles meld into the strong pronounced shoulders. There was a confident curve to his spine. He had a tan line around his neck from his specialist uniform's high collar.

Meanwhile, Helia combed a hand through his hair down to the elastic that had loosened down to his shoulder. He unravelled it and gathered his hair in his hands to make a new queue.

"It is not polite to ogle, Musa," Helia said.

"I'm not ogling!" Musa's face turned red.

"Of course." Helia unwrapped his hot sandwich of its paper and began to eat. "I'm not going to be good company," he said after the first bite.

"It's okay."

"What are you working on? A song?" he asked. He looked at the sheets scattered about.

"Yeah."

"How does it go, if you don't mind?"

Musa was startled by Helia's question.

"Do you have the beat in your head? Sorry, I'm used to asking this. Am I being too forward?"

"I thought you liked to draw?" Musa evaded. And her question was valid, too. She was under the impression that Helia was an artist of the painting and drawing kind, so what did he really know about music and its beautiful intricacies?

"I did some music in fine arts school."

"Oh."

Helia smiled and continued to eat. "It's okay. I understand how people like to keep things private. It can't be helped sometimes."

"I don't mean to…."

"It's fine, Musa, perfectly fine."

"No, I'd…" Musa sighed and looked outside. She saw Helia's reflection. "It's just that there aren't a lot of people in Alfea that would like to…." She wanted to open her heart to him. He seemed to understand her but she was not sure if sharing with him would be right. She was not sure if he would understand.

"It's a fairy school, Musa. I know. You go there to study being a fairy, not to study music. It's hard to find people who have the same interests as you."

Musa pouted at her reflection. "It's sort of like that. And it's a little _embarrassing_…."

"Do you play any instruments?" Helia subtly changed the direction of the conversation. He could see how uncomfortable she was discussing that particular subject.

Musa was grateful for the simple question. "I play the saxophone and the flute. I'm trying to learn how to play the bass but it's a little different from a flute so...yeah."

"I started playing the piano when I was very young. I can play a dozen of other instruments decently but my best is the piano."

"You sound like you're not telling me everything," Musa said audaciously. She was curious to understand what kind of specialist had an artistic side and could play music. There were many specialists that knew how to play music at Red Fountain. Sky and Brandon knew how to play the guitar and sing because of their upbringing but Musa could not relate to them. They did not have a strong creative passion as she did.

"I am. Withholding, that is. I can play many instruments well."

"I thought that you went to art school to study art."

"I did. I also learnt other things at the same time."

Musa paused. She was starting to feel like she could find a friend in Helia. "You went to Adquistes University, right? Isn't that a little…?"

"Expensive? Yes."

"But I thought that you had gone to Red Fountain for a year."

"I did."

"Wait. How old are you?"

"I just turned nineteen. I know. I'm a lot older than you thought. If I had stayed with Red Fountain straight through, I would have graduated by now." Helia smiled. He could see the many questions in her eyes.

Musa became flushed and paused to gather her thoughts. "Why did you leave the first time?" she asked delicately. She wondered if it was an appropriate thing to ask.

Helia drank his soda. He exhaled softly. He looked extremely pensive.

"I don't know."

Musa could hear the void of emotion in his statement. There was something there but she was not sure what its name was. "Oh. I guess it can't be helped."

Helia smirked. "You're right. It can't be helped, these incomprehensible foolhardy hearts that artists possess."

Musa smiled down at her notebook. "Yeah."

"The soul is not necessarily something that is meant to be understood. I had other reasons as to why I left though."

Musa waited for him to elaborate.

"There were rumours. There were rumours about favouritism towards me. They were not very nice ones either."

Was he a cheater? Was it because of his family? So far, Musa liked what she had personally seen of Helia. It seemed like everyone had a general distrust of the dropout. Musa reflected on the scant information Riven had told her. Helia had been the best at almost everything he did and everyone disliked him because of it.

"I was only sixteen, but with Saladin as the headmaster, it was bound to happen. People thought I was favoured by the staff. I had good grades and I accomplished the missions with good reports. I just never thought that it would be that bad. At some point, I just grew tired of it. They say that you should ignore what is not true, but I have no patience for lies. The people grew vindictive. I felt the acid of envy and I left. It was too much effort to even try and convince people."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Musa."

No, it was not fine. Musa did not think that Helia was fine with the story he had just told it.

"What did you do at Adquistes?" she said softly to change the subject. She did not like the face that Helia had on. It was too sad.

"I studied art. I went into visual arts and I looked at some drama with literature and poetry. Very fun. Great people." Helia smiled brightly at her.

Musa could not help but smile back. "So you stayed there for two years only? You didn't even get your diploma, huh?"

"Oh, I did," Helia said dismissively. He took Musa's pause as an opportunity to bite into his sandwich.

"What?" Musa rose in her chair. "I thought it takes three years to complete a DCS?"

"A diploma of collegial studies usually does at AU, but I went to secondary education at a sister school of the university when I was younger. Some of my previous courses from home gave me the equivalent of ten points. The department coordinator dropped four of my requisite courses. I didn't need to learn the things I already did."

Musa fell back in her seat. She was not sure of what to think about Helia. She would kill to be as fortunate as Helia. "Ten points? That's a year's worth of points!"

Helia saw the music fairy's surprise and became very quiet.

"I don't believe that I am helping myself here by telling you this."

"But why would you come back at all? You have a degree!" Getting a degree was one of Musa's greatest ambitions, besides making people hear her music.

"I came back because I thought that with the new school being built, I could throw away the bad memories. The Red Fountain that I went to is gone." Helia looked out the window and pointed to the red tower floating over the forest across the lake: the new Red Fountain fortress.

"I want better memories of this place. I am a warrior as much as I am an artist. I want to be able to prove that I merit what I have accomplished. I am not riding on the coattails of my family." Helia waved his arm to point at the entirety of the lake and the schools.

Musa envied his courage. Helia's face was painted gold from the setting sun. His dark hair looked like the purest shade of black she had ever seen and she wanted to touch it, to find out what long hair on man felt.

What was she thinking? She banished those thoughts away and avoided Helia's intense sapphire gaze.

"Something wrong, Musa?"

"Nothing."

Musa felt a little hesitant. Helia had given her a synopsis of his story, but she felt that there was more to this than what he had said. She could tell that he was understating the fact he was very talented in an attempt to be nice, but she could sense maybe a loneliness and insecurity in his voice.

Getting into Red Fountain was already a challenge itself. Only the best got into that school, but dropping out to complete a three year art program in two years at a prestigious and expensive university and then come back to Red Fountain…. Musa was awed. She wished she could do something like that.

She wanted to know more about Helia. He was sitting right in front her, but the enigma around him grew and grew. She wanted to figure out the puzzle and cherish the answer in her heart.

"So about that song that you were working on?" he said.

"I…" Musa remembered that the song that she had worked on was the one she had crumpled. All her other scraps were simply not presentable. Her eyes drifted to the crumpled sheet. Helia caught the shift in her eyes. Her hand raced to pick it up but he reached it before she could.

He unravelled it. To Musa, the sound of the crinkling paper was like bullets pelting her body.

Helia neatly flattened the paper and handed it back to her with the lyrics faced down. At her confused face, he said, "I can tell that you don't want me to see this. I'm not as dense as to not realise this."

Grateful, Musa put the scrape in her notebook. Something in her heart ignited warmly. She was used to people reading her things without her permission after they had gotten a hold of it, but he did not. He had the decency to respect her that much despite not knowing much about her.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome."

She could seriously fall in love with a guy like Helia, she thought.

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><p>I need opinions on this. This seems okay but I'm not totally satisfied with Musa but it might be because I don't write about her often enough. I also don't know how Helia interacts with Musa because I believe he has never said a word to her in the series. Is Helia supposed to be disgustingly talented maybe inhuman for a student? Yes. He is supposed to leave a sour note for everyone.<p>

I now call this couple wordshipping. (This is a joke.)


	2. A note to the readers

Tuesday, April 2, 2012

Dear Reader,

This story, _Inspired_, is a short story. There is no second chapter. Please stop asking me to continue this piece. I have clearly tagged it as "Completed" since it was first published. I am grateful for your reviews but please understand that I have no desire to continue this story. I have no fondness for Musa and I would probably turn Helia into a brilliant but bored Faustian character, something I can say with confidence is a story that very few people would enjoy reading.

This story was something I had written a year prior to being published. I had originally published this with the intent of inspiring other writers to write their own Helia and Musa romance stories. I have seriously tried to come up with a story involving the two but I found that I did not enjoy the process because my impressions of their characters make them incompatible as a couple. I also find that I am not fond of romance stories.

The only other story featuring Musa and Helia written by me is called _The Meaning of the Colour Black_, that I had written while in need for cartharsis. I have no plans for a Musa and Helia story. That does not mean that I will not write a story featuring them, but until that happens, you will have to be satisfied with the two stories I've written and whatever stories you find in the archive.

Thank you for reading my story.

Sincerely,  
>Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel, author<p> 


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